So by stealing someone else's private property, you're being reimbursed for the money you're forced to pay the State? Self-justification R Us.

Meanwhile, shop owners who protect their businesses are also worried about getting their taxes back, if the state attacks them for defending their property:

Deputy assistant commissioner Stephen Kavanagh had already said it was not baton rounds or water cannon that would defeat the rioters – it was communities themselves. "We are already seeing a community kickback. People are angry. This is their neighbourhoods that are at stake," he said.

Before Monday evening's events there were warnings that Turkish shopkeepers in Tottenham were forming "protection units" to stop their businesses being looted, while retailers in nearby Wood Green were said to have equipped themselves with crowbars and other weapons after holding emergency meetings.

When the trouble came, hairdressers, sales assistants and butchers were among the scores of Turkish and Kurdish workers who stood outside their businesses in Green Lanes, Haringey, from 8pm having been warned by police to expect trouble.

The Guardian filmed others – some armed with baseball bats – on guard outside shops and restaurants in Kingsland Road, only a mile away from Hackney's burning high street. Three workers from Re-Style Hairdressers were among those out in Green Lanes, after word spread that an attack was imminent at about 4pm.

"I was here with my brother and my boss waiting for them until about midnight," said 16-year-old Huseyin Beytar. "If some guy ever breaks a window in this street, all the Turkish Kurdish people come down to protect the shops. We're like a family."

"We have to do things for ourselves," said Huseyin. "We have to look after each other. If they come here tonight there will be a fight, a big fight."

"We were outside ready and expecting them," said the manager of Turkish Food Market, who asked not to be named.

"But I felt very panicky because we are not safe from either the rioters or police.

"We put all of our efforts into this shop. It took 20 years to get it like this. But we do not know about our rights.

"I'm scared that the police and the government will attack us if we defend our businesses.

"We are being squeezed between the two."

Mike McNally has a new article up on the PJM homepage on the London riots, with another quote from one of the looters in his headline: "We’re Not Broke, But Who Says No to Free Stuff." But at the end of an otherwise sold article, McNally longs for a world that no longer exists:

Several commentators have remarked that the scenes of destruction across London last night were reminiscent of the Blitz. Londoners and their leaders now need to show some of the spirit that their predecessors did back then, confront and disown the minority of criminals in their midst, and reclaim their city.

British society is not just tolerant of bad behavior, but paralyzed in its face. Its legal apparatus is now incapable of doing anything about it. The indispensible James Delingpole (author of the excellent book Watermelons on the green movement) describes how young offenders — surely the majority of those involved — will be treated more like victims than their actual victims, while the media silences those who point out inconvenient truths.